


If you let me be your anchor

by fabrega



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is always a mission, and this time is no exception.</p>
<p>(There are a few more things in the Winter Soldier's file, and the mission goes very differently.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you let me be your anchor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/gifts).



> Spoilers for Cap2.
> 
> For lanyon, because.
> 
> Thanks to my beta, Alex, who read this despite its codename. Title taken from a song by Dawes of the same name.

Steve Rogers has always needed Bucky Barnes to be a better version of himself--no, not needed, not like it was something that Steve had _wanted_ , but something that has always had to happen, to keep Steve safe. He'd needed to be strong, to pull the bullies off the scrawny kid who didn't know when to keep his mouth shut; to be brave, to not let his friend know how terrified he was when Steve got sick, how terrified he was to go to war and leave Steve all alone; to be proficient, to always have Captain America's back, one step ahead of the people who wanted to hurt him. He's always pushed himself, been that better version, always until now--which, he thinks through the sobbing, gasping breaths, makes this failure hurt even more. A stronger, better version of Bucky Barnes would have just kept repeating his name, rank, and serial number. A stronger, better version of Bucky Barnes wouldn't have told them everything--not just everything, but _everything_ , not just the Army's secrets, but his own. He'd told them about Steve, about _Steve_ , about him and Steve and why wasn't he _better_ , he should have been _better_.

*

The Soldier is not sure how many times he's awoken from the cold. There is always a mission, and this time is no exception. The President of Syria takes a bullet between the eyes and the Arab Spring ignites; it is a good, clean kill, he tells himself, and his handler congratulates him.

As he is guided to the chair, he overhears the technicians talking. They often talk as though he isn't here, although he cannot remember what they have ever talked about.

"Did you hear? SHIELD's saying they found Captain America," one says.

"What, really? Didn't he die, like, a billion years ago?" the other asks.

The first one laughs. "Didn't this guy?" The technician gestures at the Soldier as they push him down into the chair. They both laugh at that. The Soldier bites down on the plastic they put in his mouth. "Hey," the first one continues, "Speaking of, were you the one who told me about the thing you found in this guy's file--"

The Soldier does not hear any more.

*

The Soldier is not sure how many times he's awoken from the cold. There is always a mission, and this time is no exception. It's different, though, because instead of a brusque military briefing and a rifle in his hand, he is given a thick file full of papers and told to memorize the contents.

"He is your mission," his handler says. The Soldier can feel her eyes on him as he flips through the pages, studying the photo of his target. "You are to earn his trust, take advantage of him, and leave his body in a compromising position. His elimination is of use to HYDRA, and his elimination in this manner will deal a blow to HYDRA's enemies," his handler says, when it becomes clear that the Soldier has nothing to say or ask about his target. And why would he? The target is a good-looking man--blond, well-built, with a chiseled jaw and clear blue eyes--but of no significance to him, no more so than any of his other targets have been. (When he tries, he cannot remember the other targets, but he knows he has not mourned their deaths.)

He does not ask the obvious questions, like _why me_. He has never before been tasked with a mission he cannot complete, and so he trusts that he can complete this mission.

"You have a three day window for completion," his handler continues. "Your cover is in there as well. Learn it."

He skims the first page: James Buchanan Barnes, goes by "Bucky". Childhood friend of the target, believed to be dead. He looks up at his handler, the question in his eyes. "You look similar enough," she says, although he can hear a note of something forced in her voice. "It will work."

He studies the file while a team of techs apply a flesh-like masking to his metal arm. He learns about his target: ROGERS, STEVEN; Steve. Their intel is incredibly thorough: they know his daily habits, where he goes and when, who his associates are, what his childhood was like, what music he listens to, who he cares about. (This last list is short, two people, one of whom he'll be impersonating. Good, then; fewer people to mourn him.) They know a lot about James Buchanan Barnes, too, which is also good, because they have to for this to work. He tries not to fidget as the skin is applied. He knows they've done this to him once before, but he can't remember when or why, just that he didn't like it then either and that he was disciplined for his lack of patience during its last application. Better is expected of him, so better he will be.

They cut his hair, approaching his head first with scissors and then with buzzing clippers. He stays quiet and still and tries not to react as the blades press up against his skin. They do not let him see the results, just nod amongst themselves. He repeats his cover to himself.

He is drilled on how to read the target, how to speak to him, how to say the things he'll want to hear. The Soldier is a quick study, and his handler looks pleased.

He puts on the clothes they have laid out for him, buttoning the shirt up the front, shimmying into the too-tight jeans. He shifts back and forth, testing the range of movement he's left with, grimacing at the way the fabric pulls and doesn't stretch the way he wants.

"You look good," a man's voice says behind him. He knows that voice; it has asked him for mission reports, praised him for his work.

"These clothes are impractical," he says without turning around, the most doubt he has voiced thus far.

"You're not supposed to look like a threat," the man chides him, and the Soldier turns to face him now. "Tell me your mission plan."

There is a map of DC spread on the table in front of the man, and the Soldier looks down at it. His finger stabs at one particular intersection, between the target's apartment and the closest Metro stop. "I'll wait for him here; there's a coffee shop he likes to stop into after his morning run. I'll sit at a table by the window, between the counter and the door. If he's as attached to Barnes as the mission brief says, I can wait for him to come to me."

"What will you say to him?" the man asks.

The Soldier describes the gist of the interaction, the people he will mention, the emotions he will convey. He ticks them off one by one, going through the steps the same as if he was assembling his rifle. He goes on, describing how he will isolate the target, how he will use the target, and how he will slit the target's throat.

"Perfect," the man says, half a smile on his face. "And what will you say to him as the life leaves his body?"

"I will lean close," the Soldier says, his voice low and dispassionate, "And I will say _hail HYDRA_."

*

"Bucky?" the target mouths at him through the coffee shop window.

The Soldier does not lift his eyes from the book he's pretending to read, just calmly turns a page. Something in his stomach tightens, though, almost like nervousness--but that can't be possible, they'd burned all the nerves out of him long ago. ( _Who had_ , he thinks, and _what_ , and _how_ \--)

The door of the coffee shop opens with a jingling of bells, and the staff behind the counter call out a greeting to the target. Then, a strong hand grips his shoulder. The Soldier does not grab it and flip its owner over onto the table and hold a knife to his throat, which is his instinct; instead, he forces his gaze upwards from his book and widens his eyes in feigned surprise.

"Bucky?" the target repeats.

"Steve?" the Soldier says, his voice mirroring the hope and disbelief in the target's own. He wonders who the hell Bucky had been, really, that he could make a grown man's voice shake like that even now, however many years later.

The target--Steve--is staring at him like he's a revelation. "You fell from the train. I thought you were dead," he says, a little breathless.

"It's complicated," the Soldier says, which isn't false. "I work for SHIELD, for about a year now," he continues, which is definitely false. He makes eye contact with the target, check. "Steve, they told me you were dead."

"I was, for a while," Steve says, his mouth darting sideways into a rueful grin. "Wait. SHIELD told this a year ago?"

"SHIELD told me this _yesterday_. The only reason I knew to come look for you was because Sitwell let slip a few months back that if I started poking around, I might find something. Everyone denied it when I confronted them, of course: Fury, Hill, even Agent Carter--"

Steve draws in a sharp breath. The Soldier must have repeated the names correctly. "You've seen Peggy?" Steve asks.

"She didn't mention you," the Soldier says.

Steve sinks into the open chair at the Soldier's table, and the Soldier knows with a dull certainty that the target is hooked.

The Soldier writes an address on a napkin and gives it to Steve, tells him to come alone. Steve pockets the napkin, smiles at him shyly, and leaves without getting any coffee.

*

It is the next day when Steve shows up to the address the Soldier had given him. Steve's apartment has been bugged by SHIELD--which is one of the few things the Soldier had said to him that was true--and both of them have their reasons for wanting to avoid that, so they end up here, at Bucky Barnes' apartment. The Soldier does not wonder about the apartment, why it's there, fully furnished and looking lived-in despite James Buchanan Barnes being a dead man. _He died, like, a billion years ago_ , his mind offers, where had he heard that before--

Steve is enamored of the place. He stands and stares at the artwork on the wall: small framed black and white photos of people the Soldier doesn't recognize, several posters of the New York skyline, a dreary-looking print that is just three blocks of color stacked on top of each other. He looks the bookshelves up and down, peers into the fridge, and keeps stealing glances back at the Soldier.

The Soldier does not like the apartment. It has too many windows, not enough cover, straight lines of sight to at least three good sniper spots outside.

Steve gestures at the sofa. "IKEA?"

The Soldier does not know that word, so he answers relatively truthfully: "Most of the furniture came with the apartment." He runs through his mental checklist, spots the one thing he has not done, rolls up the sleeves of his button-up shirt to just below the elbow.

"I talked to Fury," Steve says, settling onto the sofa. The Soldier sits next to him carefully. "He denied any knowledge of you. Said he thought you were dead."

"I don't know why he would lie to us," the Soldier says. He reaches out carefully and puts his right hand over Steve's left on the sofa. Steve's skin is warm, and the Soldier does not remember ever choosing to touch another person without intending to kill them immediately. "I'm just glad you're alive," he says, realizing he has paused for too long.

Steve looks at him, surprised, and his hand moves under the Soldier's; he turns it palm up and laces its fingers through the Soldier's own, which respond involuntarily, curling around Steve's before he can even think about it. The Soldier cannot help the look of shock and panic that crosses his face, and he curses to himself. Steve sees it too, and even as he says aloud _Buck--_ , his voice heavy with some emotion the Soldier can't place, the Soldier is evaluating his options: there is a long knife tucked down in the couch cushions, a handgun in a secret compartment in the coffee table, and the metal arm that hangs motionless at his side. He could do it now, kill the target, complete the mission, leave this apartment where every single detail of it feels like sandpaper dragging across his brain, like if radio static was something you could do to a person--

But Steve's hand in his own, sitting on the sofa between them, it's an anchor, dragging him down and away from the air that finishing the mission would provide him. It makes him want to be better, even if he drowns. It terrifies him.

"I'm just glad you're alive," the Soldier repeats.

*

The Soldier dreams that night.

He is staying alone in Bucky Barnes' apartment, in case Steve returns. He lies flat and still and motionless in the too-big, too-soft bed until sleep overtakes him.

(He does not remember ever dreaming before, but he is asleep, so it must be a dream.)

His handler and the man from his briefing stand above his bed. "Mr. Secretary," his handler says, her voice quiet in the dark, "I want to go on record as saying that I think letting this continue is a bad idea."

"We can't stop now; we have Captain Rogers right where we want him," the man from the briefing says. His voice is full of confidence.

"Sir, we can't--we don't know if any of this will trigger him. He's already been out of cryo longer than we'd like, and this situation is like nothing we've ever planned for."

"And whose fault is it that he's been out so long?" the man--the Secretary--asks. Even the Soldier can guess the answer to that one.

"There was no way to do the relevant prep while he was under. You know that. And even if there was, he doesn't deal with change well period, let alone change he isn't awake for."

"Seems you've got him all figured out," the Secretary smirks.

"That's my _job_ ," his handler replies, adding a belated, "Sir."

"Well then, you do your job, and I'll do mine." The Soldier can almost feel his handler stiffen. "Project Insight is nearly complete, and for this kill to mean anything, it has to happen before then. Your concern, however, is noted."

"Thank you, sir," his handler says.

The Secretary turns to leave the room, but turns back in the doorway. "He's a weapon, Prithi, not a person. Remember that." Then he leaves the room.

What a strange dream.

The next morning, the Soldier finds a note on the nightstand. It says **24 HOURS** in his handler's heavy script; when he turns it over, it has been written on the back of what looks like schematics for his arm.

*

Steve had left the day before promising to get some answers from SHIELD. The Soldier had suggested he start with Sitwell, because that was what his briefing had said; Sitwell would have received a similar briefing and would be able to fill in the details that "Bucky Barnes" didn't know. Steve returns positively _brimming_ with information, more than the Soldier can process, none of it real or important. The Soldier thinks of the paper folded up in his pocket, the one that says **24 HOURS** , and he says aloud, "C'mon, Steve, leave that alone for a minute, will ya?"

He approaches Steve where Steve is standing, where he's still protesting that _no, this is important_ , and the Soldier smirks like he's been taught to and says, "You never were good at knowing when to shut up," and then he grabs Steve's arms and kisses him.

Steve freezes, literally does not move a single muscle, just stands there as the Soldier presses his own lips against Steve's. For one long moment, the Soldier wonders if the intel he'd been given had been mission-endingly wrong. He is nearly ready to reach for the knife that's hiding an arm's-length away when finally, finally, Steve reacts, clutching at him, one hand buried in the Soldier's too-short hair, the other cradling the Soldier's face as he kisses back like a man who's just remembered how to breathe.

When they both surface, Steve looks at him and says, "I didn't think you wanted this."

"I've always wanted this," he replies, which is what he's supposed to say, but which he also finds is horrifyingly, gut-wrenchingly true. He can't remember an _always_ , why does this feel--he feels like there's a cage inside of him and something or someone is banging on the bars of it, trying to get out.

He wonders what his handler had meant when she said he might be triggered.

There is no time to wonder, because Steve will not stop kissing him, Steve is pushing him back towards the bedroom, Steve is pulling off his own shirt and unbuttoning the Soldier's; then they are on the bed, both in their boxers, and Steve is underneath him, so much exposed skin, so vulnerable. It would be easy, so easy to finish the mission--he has always finished the mission, why can't he finish the mission--

A voice that sounds very much like his own rings through his head, saying _better, better, Steve needs me to be better_.

He rolls down off of Steve, lies flat on his back on the bed and takes slow, deep breaths. Steve leans up on an elbow and looks at him, concern written across his face. "Am I--are we moving too fast? If there's something you need, just say so. I thought that you--"

"I'm not your friend, Steve," the Soldier says. As soon as he says it, he realizes that they'd bugged Steve's apartment and that this one is probably bugged too; he starts to climb out of bed, because they are going to need to _run_. _He_ is going to need to run. _They_ are--? 

He swears to himself.

"What are you talking about?" Steve says, smiling as he grabs the Soldier's wrist and pulls him back onto the bed. "Of course you are--you're Bucky Barnes."

The Soldier looks at him. "Am I?" He means for it to sound defiant: a challenge. It comes out sounding like a plea.

Steve traces two small, connecting scars on the Soldier's side that the Soldier hadn't noticed before. "Bucky Barnes got these in France in 1944. HYDRA forces ambushed our camp, and you lost more blood than I'd ever seen come out of one person before, which scared me half to death. Even as they were bandaging you up, you reassured me--"

"--if you could make it through that childhood of yours, I'd surely survive this little scratch," the Soldier finishes. He knows he sounds mesmerized; he pretty much is. That wasn't in his briefing. There is no way he should have known that. He touches the scars himself--they don't feel fake, not the way the skin on his arm does.

Steve smiles up at him. "See? Bucky Barnes."

The Soldier shakes his head violently, like he's trying to physically force the memories out. "No, no, get dressed, we have to go--"

"What's going on?" Steve asks, not moving from the bed.

In desperation, the Soldier claws at the skin on his left shoulder, raking his nails across it so the silver metal and bright red star there show through. Steve's expression wrinkles up in confusion and so the Soldier does the last thing he can think of, leans forward and whispers into Steve's ear: "Hail HYDRA."

Steve shoves him away then, hard. He stumbles backwards into the bedroom wall and instinct takes over; he leaps, and then Steve is pinned under him on the bed, a knife held at his throat. Steve's eyes are big and betrayed and that word, _better, better_ , steals through the Soldier's head again.

"I was supposed to kill you," the Soldier says, setting the knife down and removing himself from the bed.

"I'm glad you didn't," Steve replies after taking several deep breaths.

The Soldier is glad too. "Now, put on your clothes, we need to go. They'll know I haven't finished my mission, and--"

Someone pounds on the apartment door. "Mr. Barnes? Open up!"

Steve is already most of the way dressed, and the Soldier is busy extracting the knives and guns from their various hiding spots across the apartment. "I think they're looking for you," Steve says to the Soldier, grinning as he picks up his shield from where he'd set it beside the front door.

"I'm not--" the Soldier begins, shaking his head, and then he swallows the denial he'd been about to voice and grins back at Steve. "I'm not sure he's home. Maybe _we_ should see what they want." It's the first thing that's felt right in a long time.

They're ready when the HYDRA agents bust down the door.


End file.
